Dark Mofo’s $10.5 million cash feast to help the even expand and boost visitor numbers

TASMANIA’S Dark Mofo winter festival will continue for another five years with $10.5 million in support from the State Government.

Dark Mofo is planning to expand after the announcement of more than $10 million in government funding over the next five years. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

TASMANIA’S Dark Mofo winter festival will continue for another five years with $10.5 million in support from the State Government.

Premier Will Hodgman said in return for the cash Dark Mofo organisers have vowed to use the event to continue to drive up visitor numbers during Tasmania’s traditional off-peak tourism season.

Under the new agreement – worth $2.1 million a year for five years – festival organiser MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) has made a commitment to:

GROW interstate and overseas visitors to the event to 20,000 by 2021;

GET overall attendance to 500,000 by 2021;

INCREASE media exposure and promotion of Tasmania;

DELIVER a regional expansion program every year; and

INVEST at least $250,000 in programming and support of local arts based organisations.

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Mr Hodgman said Dark Mofo, which is sponsored through Events Tasmania, returned an estimated $46 million to the economy last year, and created about 400 jobs, both full-time and short term contracts.

Mr Hodgman said an estimated 280,000 people attended the festival.

“It has also rewritten attitudes about winter in Australia’s southernmost and coldest state and shaped how we define ourselves,” Mr Hodgman said.

“Dark Mofo has embraced all that makes Tasmania quirky and unique.

“No one can copy it and nowhere can replicate it, making the event and Tasmania very difficult to compete with.”

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Dark Mofo creative director Leigh Carmichael said the five-year agreement was important for the ongoing success of the festival.

“The deal will give us the ability to expand and improve the festival, commission new works, employ and train more Tasmanians, reach further into the regions, and achieve our ambitious tourism targets,” he said.

Concerns were raised last week that several festivals, including Dark Mofo, did not have funding commitments for 2017.

The 2016 Dark Mofo festival, which finished last month, was sponsored by Events Tasmania for $2.1 million.

A ReachTEL poll of more than 600 greater Hobart residents, commissioned by the Property Council of Australia in June, found 74 per cent of respondents supported Hobart City Council providing financial support to Dark Mofo.

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The HCC contributed $250,000 cash and $50,000 in-kind support for this year’s Dark Mofo festival.

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